Don't Push Me!

This last week or so I've been learning a lot more about homeschooling.  As you may have noticed, we've been struggling lately.  I have tried everything I can think of to make homeschooling a positive, inspiring experience for Mitch, and I keep coming up short.  I tried some different curriculums, a stricter schedule, a more relaxed schedule, focusing on the basics and letting the rest go, trying to be more well-rounded in our learning, doing hands on things, doing more bookwork, you name it.

I was feeling pretty frustrated and incompetent.  And I'll go ahead and say it, I was considering that maybe Mitch's special needs were more than I could handle.  Maybe teaching him was just always going to be a battle and by positioning myself as the teacher, I was inviting many more arguments and meltdowns into our home and our relationship than need be.

But then I had a conversation with a certain wise farm mama and I realized that maybe I was being too pushy.  I had tried everything I could think of to make him learn, but I hadn't tried NOT making him learn.  At least not since this summer, when we weren't "technically" homeschooling yet.  Over the summer our "cave lessons" were a big hit with all the kids.  We were just exploring something intriguing and not doing English or Math per se.  But lately I've been more panicky and worrying about what will happen next year if we get him back into his Montessori school and he's fallen behind.  I'm forgetting to just live a day at a time.  So with that in mind, instead of trying to make Mitch learn, I tried to make myself see the learning in what he was already doing.  I tried to get back to my Montessori roots and "follow the child".

So where did I find his "school"?

He and Henry have spent plenty of time learning about physics by building and knocking over towers made out of various materials...

Lots of great storytelling going on, even if none of it makes it to paper just yet.  Dress-up is a game the whole family can agree on.

He loves videography and was receptive to my requests that he storyboard his scenes instead of just screwing around with Grandma's camera (though that's fun too).

He discovered the computer game "Timez Attack" (a great free multiplication game) and I had to kick him off of it eventually for fear his eyeballs would melt from staring at the screen for so long.  He got discouraged at level 3 because it was getting too tough for him and so he decided to delete his profile and start all over at level 1 so he could get more practice.  Cue the angels singing "Gloria"...

And tonight he fell asleep rereading "Diary of a Wimpy Kid".  I think I can live with this.

It also seems like if I set out things that I'd like him to work on, enticingly displayed on the shelf, he gets around to asking about them or taking them down eventually, in his own time.  I'm usually just not that patient.  I need to work on that.  So, going all Montessori on y'all again, I need to work more on preparing his environment and putting all kinds of 3rd graderish work close at hand and work less on "teaching" him anything.

Everyone did like our themed lessons over the summer though so I asked Mitch if he'd like to do some more of those again and he said yes.  So at Mitch's suggestion I'm working on getting some car and truck lessons going. 

I'm also praying more.  Dear God, I'm at a loss with this boy, show me what to do with him (or not do with him as the case may be).  And I feel like He's answering.

We're Heeeere!

I've been missing in action for quite a while now, but the move is DONE!  Well, in the sense that we are living fairly comfortably in the new house anyways.  Our old house is still full of miscellaneous stuff that we still need to move either into the trash, the Goodwill pile, or boxes to bring over, but the heavy lifting is done.  Besides the physical move, we've also been having quite the homeschool journey as well.  More and more of my ideas about what to teach and how to teach just keep flying out the window.

Mitchell just keeps rebelling against any attempts on my part to TEACH him.  Though now that I think about it, he's been that way for the last eight years.  Even as a toddler and preschooler, if you tried to show him something, like say how to hold a baseball bat properly, he would always say either "I already KNOW how to do that" or "I don't want to".  He always wants to do things his way.  Partially out of orneryness I guess, but also because he has so darn many ideas about the world and how it works and how it SHOULD work that he doesn't have time for anyone else's ideas.  And I suppose he's been "spoiled" by his last five years of Montessori schooling (in a good way).

I was having a really hard time finding anything that would let him have the level of independence he was used to.  There were some computer based curriculums, but those were pretty spendy and I don't think he would have allowed himself to be chained to a computer either.  But God watches over us and a book that I put on my PaperbackSwap wishlist a long time ago arrived in the mail.  It was Elizabeth G. Hainstock's book "Teaching Montessori in the Home: The School Years".  It has been a lifesaver!  Not only does it tell me how to introduce the different activities, it also gives me tips on how to make or buy the Montessori materials I need cheap or free.

So far for Mitchell i've just gotten together the materials for the multiplication board and the multiplication summary sheets, but my plan is to try to make at least one new material a week for Mitchell and also for the rest of the kids. Watching Mitch work on math happily and excitedly (and independently!) inspired me to start introducing Montessori works to my other children as well.

We've already been doing a pretty good job with our Montessori baby I think.  She uses the potty, has toys of all different materials, eats the kitchen utensils, and doesn't wear restrictive clothing so she can move and groove on the floor with the best of them.  Last week I started introducing some cursive to Henry and he's just eating it up.  My goal is to slowly but surely increase my collection of Montessori preschool and elementary materials so by the time Ivy is ready for them, i'm ready for her too.

That's the bummer about being the oldest I think - you are always the guinea pig.  But you also get to be the teacher too.  Mitchell has taught me sooo much about what it means to teach, what it means to be a mom.  He took all the ideas I had about kids when I was a high school babysitter, how I was going to parent someday, and just ripped them to shreds.  Sad kind of, but i'm older and MUCH wiser now thanks in no small part to him.

Getting Started "For Real"

The move to our new house is looming over us - just two weeks away.  I was hoping to wait until after we moved to really start homeschooling in earnest, but when school started for Henry and preschool for Violet, it seemed like it was time to dig in a little with Mitchell too.  Our old school ended in May so it had already been a long summer.

I felt prepared though.  I had chosen a math curriculum and an English curriculum and decided to do more unschooling and child-led learning for the other subjects, so we got started.  It seems to me like things have been going well this last week, but there has been a certain theme that has carried through our week and continues on as we start this week.  And the theme is "That's not how my other teacher did it".  It seems like everything I try to do with Mitchell, he's comparing me to his Montessori teacher.  And let me tell you, those are quite big shoes to fill.  I feel really bad that he's had such a good educational experience and now I'm not living up to that.  I thought I would be a good teacher, and I do feel that I'm doing a decent job, but it really hurts that I can't offer him the kind of teaching he is wanting right now.  I'm doing my best, but I'm just not Montessori trained, and while I have a pretty good grasp of what goes on in a primary classroom, I'm not as familiar at all with what they do and how they do it in an elementary classroom.  He wants me to give him fewer, shorter lessons and then let him work independently, but I just don't have things set up that way here now.  Frankly, I don't have anything "set-up", we're working out of a box as everything gets packed for the move.  But even worse, I have no idea how to set up a framework for homeschool where he can be hands-on AND independent like he was at his Montessori school.  It seems like for the most part, the hands-on type of things require more parent involvement, and the independent curriculum are all on the computer or are heavy on the workbooks.

Henry too is not having a stellar start to the school year.  Already I'm communicating frequently with his teacher about his behavior.  Typical Henry stuff, nothing too dramatic, but still.  I am also not very impressed with the coursework.  They are starting out the year with their letters and numbers and shapes and friendship skills.  Henry covered all that in kindergarten (though you can never practice friendship skills too much).  It seems like they will be getting to some topics that will be new to him soon, but he too is lamenting the loss of his old school.  He misses the practical life activities and thinks it is ridiculous that they don't get to bake in kindergarten.  He vacillates between saying school is awesome and saying it is boring and he doesn't want to go.  As long as I keep getting the "awesome" answer regularly, we'll stick with it, but I'm predicting I may be homeschooling both boys much sooner than I had originally planned.

I'll keep searching for the right fit for us, educationally, whether it be finding the right curriculum or finding a way to get the kids back into their old school, but right now I'm feeling pretty discouraged.  It has not been our best "back-to-school".

The View From Here: Ivy

I have a nice little corner set up for Ivy and bought her a great little toy arch to hang things on for her.  Guess what?  She hates it.  She doesn't mind a little floor time in the corner now and then, but she has absolutely no interest in that toy arch.  I've tried to hang different things on it to catch her eye, but to no avail.  I made some really neat high contrast thingies out of cardboard for her that I hung on there - she wouldn't even look at them.

I'm still not sure why things on the arch don't interest her, but I did notice something when I was changing her yesterday.  It seemed that she likes looking at the grate on the little metal wipes shelf over her changing table.  So I said to myself, "Self, if the baby won't go to the cute developmental thingies, bring the cute developmental thingies to the baby."

I hug my black and white and red masterpieces from her wipes shelf and bazinga!  She DEFINITELY noticed them at the next diaper change.  Her eyes were open wide and she held very still and just stared.  She was mesmerized.  Here is the view from Ivy's changing table...

Now as you can probably see, she was already getting some interesting patterns and contrast from the stuff that I had placed on the shelf.  But mamas like to feel useful once in a while so i'm going to leave the hanging things up there anyway since she seems to like them even better.  It's hard to tell from the picture, but i've also hung the three objects at three different heights, so there is some depth perception work going on there too.

If you'd like to make something out of these nice high contrast infant patterns, you can print them from here.  Then make them into whatever you want.  I glued them onto cardboard and hung them with curling ribbon (what I had on hand).  You could just tape them up on a wall or car seatback or wherever your baby might want something interesting to look at.  Make a little book out of them for you and baby to sit together and look at?  Be creative!

Ivy's Space

I can't title this "Ivy's Room", because she doesn't have a room.  But really, does an infant need a whole room?  I think not.  A while back I told you all about my plans for the "baby nook" so today I thought I would update with pictures.  You won't see Ivy in any of them because she is sleeping in my bed with Mitchell right now, but I had a quiet moment so thought I would let you see what we've done.


After using the space a bit I decided that Ivy needed a play space up in the livingroom, so I took some of the elements I had prepared for her nook (like the mirror) and created a corner for her upstairs also.  She also has a crib mattress in her room instead of the futon we bought for her because for the first five weeks my husband slept upstairs on the futon instead of with us while he waited for Ivy to get her days and nights straightened out.  We just haven't switched things back around yet and really, since she's no where near rolling yet, I don't think there is a pressing need.

The corner upstairs turned out really nicely.  And since her area is flanked on three sides by a bookshelf, a wall, and an armchair, she is able to be on the floor pretty safely and not really in constant peril of being stepped on.

Now, don't think that my whole house is this clean and the "maelstrom" in the title is a bit of exaggeration.  Rest assured that directly around and behind me where I am taking this picture is plenty of insanity.  Pretty much my entire mothering life, the cleanest spots in the house are the baby's area.  They are too little to mess it up.  Once it becomes a toddler area instead of a baby area though, look out!

Ready As I'll Ever Be

The due date is just 12 days away and other than a general layer of filth over the household, I would say we are pretty ready for baby.  We have help in place for this month, all the unisex baby clothing is unpacked and washed and put in drawers, but most of all - the baby has a safe, beautiful, quiet place to be.  We've finished the baby nook.  I WOULD post pictures right now, but in working on getting our room clean yesterday, my dear husband tromped all over the baby's floor bed and decided the baby nook was a great place to store junk while he was cleaning.  I cleaned it back out again, but I still need to vacuum in there and the bedding needed to be washed after dirty junk was stacked on it.  So I'll take pics after the bedding is back in there.  But in the meantime i'll tell you what we did.  Amazingly I managed to finish just about everything on my list!


We started with a coat of light green paint, and my husband got it in his head that the baby should have carpet (the only carpet in our entire house) so he installed a brown carpet remnant on the floor.  We used a
 bookshelf we got off of craigslist.com for a room divider and covered the remaining distance with a Regalo Easy Step Extra Wide gate.  That combo seems to be working pretty well since we bolted the bookshelf to the wall.

The floor bed was from craigslist.com as well - a twin size futon.  It is quite firm and thin and low to the ground so while it would make a pretty uncomfortable night's sleep for an adult on a futon frame, it should work perfectly for our purposes.  I'm looking forward to being able to nurse baby to sleep laying down in THAT bed and then sneaking away for adult time with the hubby in OUR bed.  Nothing like nursing laying down to get a new baby knocked out, but invariably when you try to gently put them in their own bed, they wake up.  Hopefully this will be a great solution to that problem.

 We have some Wee Gallery wall decals up for decorations.  I had seen the Wee Gallery art cards in various Montessori catalogs and thought they were great, so when I saw that they also made wall decals, I knew I had to have some for the baby's nook.  They turned out very cute.  I'm not sure how long they will last (when Julia was two she ripped down the beautiful wallpaper mural we had up for her) but at least they were cheap and I know where I can get more in case these get destroyed (as often happens in this house).

I decided to skip the eyebolt in the ceiling for the mobiles for a couple of reasons.  First was that I could just see the kids going crazy and trying to hang on any kind of rope or string or elastic that hung down all the way from the ceiling.  And second was that I wanted more portability.  I'm not sure how much time the baby will really spend in that space so I thought that a portable mobile holder would make more sense.  So we ended up with a wooden toy arch from Ikea which has removable toys and is set up very nicely to be able to hang your own items from it.  We did hang a mobile from the baby's ceiling, but it is one just for looking at.  For that mobile we went with the Flensted swallow mobile.  I like it because it is high contrast (black, white, red) and contrasts well against our white ceiling, and also it is extremely lightweight so it moves in the slightest air currents in our house.  If you open up the window in the baby's room and lay on the floor bed you can see the sky and clouds out the window, the swallow mobile twirling, and hear the birds out in the backyard - it's lovely.

The other thing we have in the baby's nook was a splurge that I've been eyeing for a long time.  I wanted one with both Henry and Violet but just couldn't afford it or justify it.  It's an unbreakable child-safe mirror that mounts either vertically or horizontally.  I have it in the horizontal position right now, but once the baby grows out of that, I can put it vertically and the whole family can use it for hygiene and grooming.

As usual, the baby's room is the nicest room in the house.  When each of the kids were born we put alot of time and effort and love into their first rooms that we NEVER give to the rest of the house.  It's just so much more fun to make a beautiful nursery than it is to clean the livingroom or do dishes.  Another upside?  They don't make it dirty!  For about the first 6 months or even more, if you clean the baby's room, it pretty much stays clean.  Unlike the rest of the house which is filthy again about 20 minutes after you've cleaned it.

So while there is still (and always) more things to do around here, I think we are about as ready for this baby as we'll ever be!  Wish us luck!

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

So, with baby #4 on the way, i've been making some plans for how we are going to set things up for the new little one. In the past the middle bedroom has always been the nursery, but currently it is occupied by Jamie and Julie and I don't think moving them would be a wise idea. They are pretty happy and the room is pretty well set up and you know what they say about sleeping dogs. Our plan at this point is to make the nook at the foot of the basement stairs into a little baby sleeping space - kind of a mini bedroom. We'll have all the baby's stuff (dresser, misc baby gear, etc) in Mitchell's room, and technically the two of them will be sharing a room, but not really.

I've been doing alot of reading about Montessori nurseries and floor beds and the like. Mitchell's room is no place for a floor bed for sure. He is eight and the floor of his room is littered with legos and paper airplanes and chunks of dissected remote control cars. Not very baby safe. So we decided that while the basement nook isn't big enough to be a real bedroom, it does have room for a twin size futon mattress on the floor, a small shelf, a mobile, some low art and a mirror. And from what I have gathered, that is pretty much the essence of a Montessori bedroom for the first year of life so for now I think it will work.

Most of this is still in my head, but I did pick up a new twin futon mattress on craigslist this weekend and some foam puzzle mats to pad the floor (the floor is concrete) so we are on our way. Some other things on my list for the mini-Montessori nursery are:

*Paint the nook - it is currently stark white with gray concrete floor - not very calming or beautiful or anything. In fact, somewhat reminiscent of an insane asylum which really isn't that far off from the reality of our house. I'm thinking a light, gentle green.

*Cover the floor - like I said, it's concrete. A large rug or carpet remnant should do it though, with foam pads around the bed for extra padding.

*Fence off the area - not sure how we're going to do this yet. Probably some combination of bookshelves and a large gate. It's not a big area so it shouldn't be too tough.

*Montessori mobiles - an eyebolt in the ceiling should be doable, and i've found some cute, cheap mobiles on Etsy and Amazon. We'll start with something high contrast, then move to the Gobbi, then a grasping ring. Once baby is more mobile we'll find something beautiful to hang higher up just for looking at.

*An unbreakable mirror - i've found them for about $90 so I think this will be the most expensive part of the nursery. Well worth it though I think because we can use it long after #4 is done with babyhood.

So - those are my goals for now. We'll see how much of that comes to fruition, but here's hoping!